Cyclone Monica looks like it’s going to follow pretty much the same track as Ingrid last year: directly westward skirting the north coast straight across Cobourg Peninsula and Melville Island and then on out into the Timor Sea. Cyclone Monica looks like it’s going to follow pretty much the same track as Ingrid last year: directly westward skirting the north coast straight across Cobour Peninsula and Melville Island and then on out into the Timor Sea.
But we’re watching it closely, just in case Monica takes a slight left turn like Cyclone Tracy did. It was a category 4 cyclone with maximum winds of 250 kph or so at the centre. Monica is currently a category 5 with winds 100 kph stronger than that at 350kph. Darwin houses are required to be designed to withstand a strong category 4 cyclone, but a lot would sustain major damage if Monica retains its present strength and hits Darwin squarely.
Monica’s ultimate track should be much more evident by around 8pm this evening. It should be approximately over Cobourg Peninsula by then. If it’s still tracking dead west we’ll stay home. If it’s showing any signs of a southerly skew we’ll jump in the car and head south down the Stuart Highway (along with thousands of others, I suspect).
Update – 11am Monday – the forecast just released has Monica hitting Darwin at around 10-11am tomorrow, and still being at category 4 intensity at that point. Time to start packing and securing loose objects. Darwin Met Burau forecaster Andrew Tupper:
“It’s a very large, well-organised system, and a cyclone that size doesn’t go to nothing in a day.
Monica would prove a serious threat even if it weakened, Mr Tupper said.
“Our most optimistic forecast is it will be a category three at Darwin, we’re preparing for a category three and a category five would be the most pessimistic.
“A category three cyclone is still a very serious cyclone – we’re tracking it very carefully and hoping it will change course.
“We’re expecting gales will affect Darwin, there’s almost no way around that.
“The edge will hit about dawn tomorrow and the core will approach later in the day.
“Even if the track changes Darwin will still receive a glancing blow.”
PS – Jacques Chester provides a link to a new Cyclone Monica site containing live webcam shots, weather maps and a range of other Cyclone Monica stuff. I’m waiting for my daughter to bring my car back so I can go home and start stowing away stuff that could blow around.
“Cyclone Monica looks like it’s going to follow pretty much the same track as Ingrid last year: directly westward skirting the north coast straight across Cobour Peninsula and Melville Island and then on out into the Timor Sea.”
The BOM aren’t quite so sanguine. They’ve got her heading almost straight for Darwin.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDD65811.shtml
“If it’s showing any signs of a southerly skew we’ll jump in the car and head south down the Stuart Highway (along with thousands of others, I suspect).”
Nup. We’ll be hunkered down at home in Howard Springs. We’ve got torches and batteries, candles and matches, fuel for the little genny to keep the fridge/freezer running, water and chocolate.
I’m working on the theory that the better prepared we are, the less likely we are to need it!!
The serious panic buying should be starting about now. I went and stocked up yesterday.
Personally I plan to stay at home – the dunny shed is concrete and rebar and should hold up pretty well. I think that the roof might come off the house so I’ve been wrapping things up.
The US Navy reckons Monica will pass to the south of Darwin – probably a direct hit on Noonamah – plus the Bureau reckon it’ll lose some oomph over the Coburg Peninsula.
Still, it’s bloody scary.
The forecast document (I’ll post the map in a minute) certainly says it will lose intensity, but it still has it at a category 4 (i.e. Tracy intensity) when it hits Darwin at around 10-11am tomorrow. We’re only a block back from the beach at Rapid Creek, and the house is an old pre-Tracy elevated, albeit strengthened to Code. The trouble is that we’re sourrounded by large trees, and if one falls on the house (fairly likely in a category 4, especially given that the soil is already soft because we’ve just had the wettest April on record), it’s going to get crushed irrespective of cyclone coding.
I’m seriously thinking we should be packing and driving this afternoon. Lots of people will be doing the same, so it’s likely motels in Katherine will be booked out. We might need to keep driving to Mataranka or further. Moreover, a lot of roadhouses close at 11pm, so you need to be driving through early enough to still get fuel if you have to keep driving.
I wish you the best of luck. The trees around this house were pulled out years ago for just that reason.
But I am not really prepared to take flight. I’d feel happier staying put, even if it is a monster.
I’ve just managed to book the last room at Knotts Crossing Resort in Katherine. We’ll be driving down there late this afternoon, after securing everything at home and helping Jenny Parish and Jen’s husband to do the same.
Yep, it’s certainly time to take this seriously. We’ll be sticking around. My wife’s already decided it’d be way too hard to abandon our house. Although we’re in Millner, an older suburb like Ken’s, our house is relatively new and built to code. Fingers crossed and best of luck, Darwinites.
Relevant link:
http://monica.infoaddict.net/main.php
A few folk have webcams up, with more to come. Hooray for the intarwebs.
Good luck and I hope that your trees withstand the battering and don’t fall on the house. It must be a strange feeling leaving it behind and wondering what will happen, but I think you’re wise to split, although I can understand why one would want to stay.
Maybe I’m missing some Territorian deliberate-understatement-in-the-face-of-peril, Ken, but I reckon that saying Tracy took a “a slight left turn” at Cape Fourcroy is a bit *too* casual. Not only did Tracy turn 90 degrees there, she further adjusted her aim very late in the piece to head due east. This meant that she was able to take a direct hit on Darwin from the sea (no mean feat for a cyclone originating to the NE, which is the “land”/sheltered side of Darwin).
Had Tracy not changed her final approach she would have instead “only” taken out the mainly-Indigenous populated Cox Peninsula. It seems that Tracy had issues with white Darwin back in ’74. Funnily enough, Darwin in late ’74 was also a hotbed of Larrakia anger, following the bulldozing of a subdivision in suburban Coconut Grove, over land that the Larrakia had been semi-officially promised was as good as theirs.
Anyway, stay safe, and do not assume anything about Monica’s path until she crosses the coast for good.
For “the bulldozing of a subdivision” (above), substitute: “the bulldozing of rainforest for a subdivision”.
Ref: Bill Day, *Bunji* (1994) Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra
It was divine punishment for godlessness, don’tchaknow?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v5/i1/darwin.asp
Paul
The Larrakia were long ago given title to all the undeveloped land along the Coconut Grove/Ludmilla foreshore (“Kulaluk”), and they woke up to Bill Day quite a few years ago too. He’s banned from Kukaluk, and the Larrakia have subleased some of their land for a McDonalds and a service station and are on the lookout for even bigger commercial deals. See, you can’t even trust the noble savages to live up the stereotypes of urban lefties any more. Maybe Cyclone Monica is God’s punishment of the Larrakia for selling out to the evil global hegemon?
PS I’ve stowed away everything blowable both here at Ryland Road and at Jenny Parish and Rebecca’s place. And we’ve decided to stay at the Crown Plaza in the city instead of driving to Katherine. That way we can get back to tfeed the dog and protect the house from looters (if that turns out to be a problem) as soon as the wind drops.
Anyway, its present path suggests that Monica will probably be over land and have lost a bit of intensity down to category 3 by the time it hits. That still means winds up to 180kph or thereabouts, but it should avoid drastic destruction. OTO it only has to track 3 or 4 degrees north of the current projected path to stay over water, in which case the winds would be much stronger. We’re much better off staying in a nice hotel and watching the cyclone in comfort.
And Jenny P and Rebecca even more so. Their place is right on the Nightcliff waterfront in primary surge zone, which means it would be a couple of metres or more under water if the cyclone surge arrives on high tide. At the moment they’re predicting the eye to pass around midday-1pm and it’s not high tide until a bit after 4pm so they should be OK (they’re staying at the Holiday Inn – cyclones are good business for local hotels in the slow tourist season anyway).
Here’s hoping for all of you. Take care.
I hope your dog’s okay through it! Where did you leave it?
(And I hope all of darwin is okay too.)
Good luck to all of you. I hope you don’t need it.
We’re hangin’ tight in George Cres, boys and girls – see ya all on the other side :-) :-)
BTW I’m with the USN; passing slightly to the South – here’s crossing everything. Cheers.
Geez, I moved here from Adelaide 3 days ago, and this is the welcome I get? Thanks, Darwin. I’m staying at the Airport Resort, where people were still doing laps of the pool a couple of hours ago.
Watch a cyclone in comfort?!?
Stay safe everyone.
It’s weakened to a category 2 and dropping, and tracking down around Adelaide River, so Darwin is just getting squally showers. It shouldn’t get any worse, so we’ve come home again. And the house and garden are all still here and undamaged. Hooray!
“Phew” to all concerned, with Monica now clearly not a Big One (‘cept if you live in or around Maningrida).
Ken wrote: “The Larrakia were long ago given title to all the undeveloped land along the Coconut Grove/Ludmilla foreshore (“Kulaluk”
Well that was all a bit anti-climatic, wasn’t it?
My theory – that the better prepared we are, the less likely we are to need it!! – holds true once again.
I was at Davidson’s (Mt Borrodaile), nth of Oenpelli, last September. A magical place. Looks like it was right in the path of the cyclone. Hope all there are OK.
Another bullet dodged! Glad you’re OK.
Gather you survived Ken and jen.
Now you’ve got the cleanup ahead. The garden looking like a bombed salad.
Glad you’re all ok. I’ve been through a few cyclones and hurricanes m’self and they’re pretty awesome and nasty buggers.
Thankgod the salad is there! I was thinking we’d have sorry skinny twigs exposed roots and logs across roofing iron.
But no. All dry, all intact.
I even said goodbye to my whole suburb and the beachfront. (Parish was too busy lifting and hauling everything
Paranoia may feel silly, but it sure can be a survival strategy.
– having just completed the annual school production I have a firm belief that what I once defined as paranoia is in fact certain knowledge and accurate intuition. I now know I am mostly omnipotent (cyclone predictions aside) Please note: I may currently be experiencing the manic phase of the manic depression that Parish has fondly named ‘non-clinical bi-polar disorder’. My mother, OTOH, calls it lack of self-control and bad manners.
It was actually sub-clinical bipolar disorder, but same difference. See you in a few minutes.
How does it go?
I compliment you on your hard work, tolerance and foresight.
You nit pick and call me ‘non’ and ‘sub’. How would you feel if that happened to you? You are damn lucky I haven’t entered the destructive phase of this depression. And on the off chance you might be interested I am currently attempting to take myself for a mood enhancing stroll. Lawyers! Letcherers! Creeps! Traitors! Abusers! ETC
Dinner will be at 6, 7, 8 or never!
love jen